


What We Cannot Bear to Lose

by herworship429



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Spoilers for the Rose and Paige book too, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herworship429/pseuds/herworship429
Summary: Maybe the whole mess hadn't been entirely Poe's fault after all.





	What We Cannot Bear to Lose

* * *

 

                “I’m sorry, by the way.”

                Leia looked up at Connix, who was staring at the communication screen, a worried expression on her young face. The older woman gave her a quizzical look.

                “About what?”

                “The mutiny. For not trusting the Admiral. Or _you_.”

                Leia smiled faintly, “Amilyn could be… odd. And closed off. She might not have been my first choice to lead the Resistance in my absence, if I was being honest. Not with my crew being so… well, used to the way I do things.”

                “It would have been nice to know there was a real plan,” Connix agreed in a quiet voice, as if she was still afraid of offending Leia, “I don’t think Poe would have- well, it would have been different. If she had trusted him.”

                A strange way to put it, particularly given the approval Amilyn had expressed of Leia’s cocksure young commander in the end. It was hardly the time or the place for this discussion, in a falling-down Rebel base, waiting for the First Order to crack open their shield door and come for them all, but there hadn’t been time before either, to hear the details of what had happened. She’d thought it didn’t matter. Now she wondered…

                “What do you mean by that?” she asked after a moment’s pause. Connix blinked at her.

                “Well, you… you blame him, for the mutiny, and sure, he convinced us. But… she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of listening to anything he had to say. She barred him from the bridge. Yes, he was… well, he might have kicked a few chairs over. But he wasn’t wrong. From what we knew, it was a suicide mission. And she wouldn’t tell us anything else, not even then. And even after Poe explained his plan, she just…” her brow furrowed, “‘A Stormtrooper and a who-now are doing what?’ That’s how she put it. Not ‘Finn and Rose’. I don’t think she even knew their names, and Rose _served_ on _Ninka_. I just… I understand why he was so upset. It didn’t seem like she had the Resistance’s best interests at heart. Not until you explained everything.”

                “Oh,” her face must have fallen visibly, because Connix was off apologizing, and Leia had to step away so the Lieutenant could get back to the task at hand. But her words stung.

                All at once, Leia realized her mistake; Holdo’s mistake. She’d never been the kind of leader to try and tell someone they were doing their job wrong when they were simply doing it differently from _her_. But Holdo was blunt and logical; she had always delegated the sort of personnel outreach that had made Leia famous among her crews to someone else, if she ever bothered with it at all. So, even though Amilyn had personally recruited Rose Tico to work maintenance on _Ninka_ , Leia was only slightly surprised to hear that she had failed to remember the girl at all. And she had operated _Ninka_ almost entirely on blind trust. Her crew just listened to her, never questioned her orders. She’d never dealt with a command crew who had come to expect to know _why_ they should follow their General’s orders; a crew whose regular commander knew every one of their names, and generally could be relied upon to remember details of their lives someone of her ranking would never be expected to know. Leia had run the _Raddus_ half-like a family, not just a military vessel. And Poe…

                Leia had mentioned she was grooming a… well, not a replacement, really, but a _successor_ , someone she could trust to act as she would when she could no longer do her job. But she’d never explained to Amilyn, as much as she might have been able to (the violet-haired woman didn’t always understand emotions), why, of all the options she had at her disposal, she’d chosen an impulsive, hotheaded fighter pilot.

                Part of it _was_ logical. Poe was brave to a fault, dedicated and hardworking; he was also incredibly intelligent, and a good strategist who was getting better every day, when he could slow down long enough to let his mind work. He was charming, personable; he inspired loyalty wherever he went. Maybe he trusted too easily; he wanted to see the good in everyone. But it wasn’t a trait Leia wanted him to lose, because that was how she inspired such faith and trust herself. By extending that trust first.

                Part of it was… well, that was the part she had a hard time explaining to _anyone_. The Force was everywhere, in everything and everyone, and if she concentrated, she could almost see it: a hundred billion tiny lights across the galaxy. Some, like Finn, were dim and flickering, barely a spark; most shimmered sometimes, like the dull gleam of a pearl when the light hit it just right. The Force was there, but they couldn’t sense it, weren’t aware of it. It might touch them occasionally, but never purposefully, and never on their terms.

                Rey, like Luke and Ben before her, was a searchlight.

                But there were a few who were somewhere in between. Han had been like that. He hadn’t been aware of it, not really, and he certainly couldn’t manipulate the Force, not like she could when she was pressed to do so. But his innate skills and reflexes hadn’t been luck, or a mistake, or a fluke. He hadn’t exactly been Force-sensitive, but he’d been about as close as a normal sentient could get to it. And that was what she saw in Poe Dameron. What she’d seen in his mother, even though she hadn’t understood what it was then, and Poe burned brighter than Han _or_ Shara. It wasn’t raw power, not like Rey or Ben, it was… _warmth_ , she decided. That charm, that ability to coax people to his side of an argument; the things about him that reminded her of herself.

                And that led her to the other part of it. The part that Amilyn would never understand, that Leia wasn’t sure she knew how to explain herself. 

                Leia had lost a son. A temperamental, impulsive boy entirely too at home in a cockpit; who could be, by turns, emotional and violent, calm and collected. Snoke had nursed a shade of doubt and darkness, manipulated it and amplified it. But if Ben Solo had never turned…

_They could be brothers_ , she’d thought a long time ago, shortly after she’d met Poe. It held true now. Maybe it was just that Kes reminded her a little of Han, and Shara had been a lot like her, in some ways, but she looked at Poe Dameron sometimes and saw Han’s unthinking kindness and cocksure attitude, her intelligence, dedication, and drive. She saw in him a vision of a future that would never be, the ghost of what Ben might have become, if he’d been able to resist Snoke.

                She stepped to the side, glancing out another bank of windows that overlooked the hangar, where he was overseeing preparations for the attack on the cannon. Things had paused for a moment, and he was alone, holding something clenched in his hand. She saw a glint of a silver chain and knew instantly what it was.

                His mother’s ring. His talisman, his good luck charm; the thing that never left him. She’d only ever seen him without it once, when he’d given it up just before he left for Jakku.

_"Hang on to this for me, will you General? Just in case.”_

                Maybe the Force had whispered to him then, of what was to come of that mission; that he should, just this once, leave behind that which he couldn’t bear to lose.

                Maybe Luke was right. Maybe there were no such things as accidents. Because she had lost a son, and Poe had lost a mother, and maybe the Force had seen an opportunity to right a wrong, restore a balance long broken. 

                Well, she had a wrong of her own to right, as soon as this was all over. Poe didn’t deserve to shoulder all the guilt for all that had happened aboard the _Raddus_. Not when he had finally done as she asked, and pulled his head out of his cockpit. Not when he was bending over backwards to be the thoughtful, creative and quick-thinking leader they all needed right now. The sort of leader she was proud to have helped shape.

                Leia had found herself at the end of her hope. She used the last of it on one final prayer: that the Force would guide him as it had always seemed to guide her, even when she hadn’t seen or sensed it; and more importantly, that Poe had enough hope of his own left to give those who would follow him.


End file.
